The Veterans Affairs Department struggles to recover
from revelations that some VA facilities forced vets to wait months for
care and that some officials concealed the delays. Recently appointed
Secretary Robert McDonald vows to streamline the department to better
serve its 6.6 million patients. But critics complain the former Procter &
Gamble CEO has been too slow to fire poor executives, and they worry about
his lack of medical and government experience. Despite its problems, the
VA has conducted Nobel Prize research and delivered quality care to most
of its patients.

Agricultural technology has enabled food supplies to
outstrip population growth, decreasing the number of hungry people. But
food shortages and undernourishment remain huge problems in developing
countries. Developed countries and humanitarian organizations have become
adept at providing emergency relief and promoting better agricultural
practices. But the outlook remains murky. Experts expect an expanding
population and growing affluence to increase the demand for food, even as
climate change hampers production.

Americans are familiar with no-compromise political warfare that led to
government shutdown and threatened default on the national debt. While
partisanship is nothing new, some social scientists fear the current wave
is undermining national unity and even democracy. Within within the
parties, Republicans witness battles between traditional conservatives and
those further right and some liberal Democrats try to push their party
further left. Polarization is not limited to politics, either. People
increasingly live near like-minded neighbors. And researchers are
discovering left/right preferences about what to drink, where to shop and
how to be entertained.

Big
data — the collection and analysis of enormous amounts of information
— is leading to huge advances in such fields as astrophysics, medicine,
social science, business and crime fighting. And big data is growing
exponentially: But the use of big data — including Tweets, Facebook posts
and web-browsing histories — is controversial because of its potential to
erode individual privacy, especially by governments conducting
surveillance operations and companies marketing products.

A century-and-a-half after Charles Darwin published
his theory of evolution, scientists and people who read the Bible
literally remain locked in battle. They are divided over a wide range of
issues, from evolution to stem-cell research to homosexuality. Despite
court rulings against the practice, some activists promote teaching
creationism in public schools. A controversial group of “New Atheist”
scientists stridently advocates the total elimination of religion from
society. But other scientists — some religious, others not — argue that
there is no inherent conflict between science and faith.

Social media became major battlegrounds in the 2012 elections. Candidates
used the platforms to organize supporters, raise funds, bypass traditional
news media, send messages unfiltered to the public, target niche
audiences, contact hard-to-reach voters, and
carry out many campaign tasks at much lower cost. Optimists hoped for a
more level political playing field. Others worried that campaigns’ ability
to compile personal information on line threatened voters’ privacy.

Americans are abusing alcohol less than in the past with one
exception: college students, who drink more and binge-drink more often
than nonstudents of similar age. And alcohol continues to extract a high
toll from those who abuse it at any age, killing 80,000 Americans a year
and draining more than $220 billion from the economy. To combat alcohol
abuse, many educational institutions, community organizations and
government agencies are stepping up efforts to promote abstinence among
the young and responsible drinking by adults who do imbibe.

Press critic A.J. Liebling once wrote that freedom of the
press belongs "only to those who own one.” A half-century later, everyone
with an Internet connection owns a virtual press. And many scorn the
standards that have guided America's mainstream media. Operators of some
news-like websites unabashedly repeat rumors and throw accuracy to the
wind. Vile, anonymous reader comments on mainstream media websites mock
civility. Serious journalists wonder which standards will prevail.

Newspapers across the country are declining in circulation, advertising
and profitability. Some are turning off their presses and moving onto the
Internet or ceasing to publish altogether. Others are reducing or closing
Washington and state-capital bureaus and shrinking their total news
output. Many journalists, scholars, political activists and government
officials worry that the collapse of newspapers will leave citizens
unable to obtain sufficient information for effective self-government.
Others hope that newspapers will find a new and productive life online.

Both parties share a fundamental goal for their national conventions: to
produce TV shows that boost their candidates. Delegates seem to have
nothing to do but cheer. “Why bother to hold them?” the critics ask.
Convention supporters argue the gatherings are needed in case a nomination
isn't settled beforehand. The conventions make decisions about party
rules. And conventions are the one time the parties become truly national
organizations, with activists from around the country mingling
face-to-face.

Many American leaders warn that a shortage of scientists is
jeopardizing the nation's world leadership in technology, along with its
military supremacy and high standard of living. In the short term, they
propose importing more high-tech workers from overseas. Long term, they
say, the U.S. must improve pre-college education, produce more college
graduates in math and science, and increase investment in research and
development. Others argue the alarm is a scare tactic by employers who
want to pay the imported workers low wages.

This
is the year cyberpolitics came of age. Building his organization online,
Howard Dean sped to an early lead for the Democratic presidential
nomination. Despite his ultimate failure, others emulated his tactics,
raising record campaign cash from small donors in the process.
MoveOn.org became one of the most prominent political players,
amassing $30 million and claiming 3 million members. Exploiting other
information technology, political organizations mined computer databases
as never before.